"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Friday, February 17, 2012

Cuomo and Mulgrew Get New York in LIne with Other Lemmings

Last night the king of hackneyed superlatives, Arne Duncan, was on Jon Stewart's show demonstrating once again that there is an Orwellian platitude for every serious question, a punishing lie inside every gilded compliment, a cynical calculation for every saccharine formula.

And in the wee hours of this morning, New York teachers joined the death march of the profession by allowing their corrupt union boss, Mulgrew, to surrender to the corporate menace running education policy in America.  The situation is pretty much summed up by this single voice of dissent registered by the New York Times, which plays the story as a victory for the Wall Street stooge, Cuomo, over Prince Bloomberg, who remains sleeping in the wings as the Gov strides onto the stage.
Arnold Dodge, an assistant professor of educational leadership at Long Island University, said it was a “political deal” that would reduce the complexities of teaching to a simple number. “It’s not fair, it’s not reliable, and it’s not stable,” he said, adding, “You’re going to get a superficial number that has virtually no meaning for the long term.”

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